Feathers
by AGENT Kuma-chan
Summary: One-shot collection. Each feather she has carries a memory, new or old, and it only grows larger over time. 6. Sakura wishes she could hate Syaoran. It would make it easier, at least.
1. Echoes, Sakura, Syaoran

**Title:** Echoes of the past

**Theme:** 30. There's an echo following me

**Character/Pairing:** Sakura, hints of Sakura/Syaoran

**A/N:** This will be the start of a collection, hopefully updated once a week. Feel free to request with character/pairings. This will be my way of getting ready to make an actual big one-shot for Tsubasa.

**Summary**: _It's a ghost in the attic of her memory, a voice that repeats itself with no end or beginning._

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Someone says her name, softly, tenderly, _lovingly_ and Sakura swims toward the sound. _Wait!_ she yells, _Wait!_

It doesn't quite leave but it doesn't stay either. At the distant edges of her mind, the border between reality and illusion, the voice calls out to her and she follows it. She has no choice but she isn't sure why. That voice is important and special, that much she knows.

She also knows that if she could just catch it, she would understand his furtive glances. Sometimes Syaoran gave her a look she didn't understand but echoed in her heart until she could feel it. It was the feeling of chasing and chasing, but never catching; the feeling of reaching for something that disappeared at the faintest touch. Sakura would try to grab it but it slipped through her hands, water leaking out the crevasses of her hand, and all too soon she would be desperately trying again.

It whispers again and Sakura runs toward it. She flies past a jumble of memories, a mountain of images that remains unsorted out. Maybe one day, when she finally succeeds, she'll come back and try to organize the landscape of her thoughts. Put the furniture back into their proper spots, the missing people into their rooms, and see the puzzle as a whole instead of tiny fragments that piled onto one another. Put the voice back into its proper room too, where it belongs and should be. Right now it's a ghost in the attic of her memory, a voice that repeats itself with no end or beginning.

_Stay!_ she cries when it disappears from her sight again. It doesn't listen to her and fades away. Like a magician bowing out, it did the final magic trick until the next show. The only thing is that she doesn't know when the next show would start. All she can do is wait patiently.

Sakura doesn't worry about it returning because it never really leaves. It just grows fainter until it's a hum that sings in the back of her mind, only to a song she doesn't know the words to and she can't turn the volume up. It just stays there, waiting for the day she can finally catch it.

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	2. Searching, Syaoran, Sakura

**Title:** The most beautiful dream

**Fandom:** Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles

**Theme:** 13. Lost, never found

**Characters:** Syaoran, Sakura

**Summary**: _Sakura is a dream, a pretty, mesmerizing dream._

**A/N:** Uh, I'm not really up to date with the chapters. I'm at the part where the two Syaoran's first meet and everyone goes O.o

So, this is before that.

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Sakura is, in a sense, a dream. She is there but not there, his but not his. Actually, Syaoran realizes, she can never be his again. Was she ever really his in the first place?

(The answer to that, as clear as the sky above, is that she belongs to everyone she meets. She belongs to her brother, to Fai, to Kurogane, to Mokona. She belongs to anyone she has talked to and touched, with the exception of him.

Forever, from now on, with him as the only exception.)

Wishing for her to go back to that old Sakura, the one who would tackle him when he visited and argued with her brother would do no good. She isn't that Sakura anymore, never will be again, and remains the elusive dream.

That is what she is. A dream, one that he could sink into forever. Sometimes she flits about him, a butterfly that gently presses its wings to his cheek for an instant. Others she floats away, a leaf in the breeze with no direction or control, relying on only the current to move her. The current that takes her even further away from him.

Sakura is a dream that Syaoran would love to stay in. Her smiles, her voice, they are all just his in that dream, there is still an _us _and _we_. There he doesn't have to listen to a memory that was _theirs_ and is now just _his_ and _hers_. Even if he can't touch her, he can still watch her and imagine what was and could have been.

(And he wonders what she would have looked like in a bright, colourful wedding dress, smiling with her guests as they danced down the streets. She would have looked so radiant with a little girl in her arms, looked so excited when she dragged him down the streets for the new place she found. He wonders and wonders and is left with just the tail of a future that can never happen.)

Yet, like every dream, no matter how mesmerizing or longed, it has to come to an end and he has to accept reality.

She is no longer _that_ Sakura. He is no longer _that_ Syaoran.

They are just two not-strangers, traveling the universe together.

-x-

(Sakura wakes up. A voice repeats itself in her head, calling her name. It was a boy, she remembers, a young boy that she used to know. Her face feels warm and she wonders, for a moment, just what that boy meant to her.

Yawning, she curls back up in her bed. The dream is already fading away, turning back into the stardust that made it. If he is important, she's sure she'll remember him eventually.)

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	3. Strength, Kurogane

**Title:** Strength

**Fandom:** Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles

**Theme:** 18. I'll die searching for it.

**Character:** Kurogane, mentions of Tomoyo

**A/N:** Originally, this was going to be about Syaoran, but I realized I wrote way too many ones that would have the same idea. And, uh, Tomoyo/Kurogane is my secret!love in this series.

**Summary**: _He wonders what _she _meant and thinks he might have found it here._

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He is obsessed with strength. Kurogane can admit that much about himself even if he doesn't find that fully true anymore.

(Perhaps it is because _her_ words are ringing in his ears and he finds himself wondering just what she meant. There is no way that strength can be bad yet she has him doubting that, doubting himself, and wanting more.)

He has to be the strongest, has to defend them all, has to beat them all. If he loses, it is more than just his pride at stake. His life (his very essence) is put on the line in each battle.

That is why he can't fully understand why she sent him away. Her sending him away, though, made him learn more than he expected. There are now techniques to create and strategies to make. No longer does the battle bore him; it exhilarates him like he hasn't been in years.

"A-are you ready to go?" Sakura tugs at his sleeve, slightly blushing. He glances around to see that the others are already dressed and he nods.

"Daddy is so slow," Fai sighs.

Mokona nods. "Daddy might not be able to help us at this pace."

"…" Kurogane glares. "Just move it already, pork-bun."

"Mokona is happy Mokona ate your breakfast," Mokona says with a huff before flailing when Kurogane picks it up by a leg. "Waah! Daddy's being mean!"

"Daddy! Put Mokona down!" Fai tries to grab Mokona but Kurogane catches him by the head.

Sakura looks around nervously, unsure of what to do. Syaoran is busy saying goodbye to someone, not realizing what is happening behind him.

"Now, will you get me something to eat and us out of here?" Kurogane hisses.

(He sees them around him and catches a glimmer of what she meant.)


	4. Hide and Seek, Syaoran, Sakura

**Title:** Hide and seek

**Fandom:** Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles

**Theme:** 18. I'll die searching for it.

**Character:** Syaoran, mentions of Sakura

**A/N:** …I'm weak, so I ended up doing a really short one anyways.

**Summary**: _She smiles and laughs and he thinks this is all worth it._

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Finding a feather is like searching for a four-leaf clover. A beautiful idea but hard to do without failing a lot first. It's always out there, somewhere near, but never close enough that it can be found easily or quickly. Instead, it will take a lot of time and effort to find, if it is ever found at all.

Usually, there is at least one feather in each world they visit. That might be because there are so many feathers right now, a flower that scattered into a million petals.

(Syaoran worries about how long it will take for the petals to disappear, appearing only every now and then.)

There are so many pieces and his (their) hands can carry only so much. It's hard, tiring, soul-crushing work. Every piece he adds is a piece that doesn't have _him_, a piece that brings them closer to that time when he will have to leave her.

(It's funny how life works out. Her brother would be pleased.)

He'll keep doing it, though. He'll keep playing this game of hide-and-seek, keep finding those memories and feelings that were once lost for good.

When Sakura gives him a smile or laughs at a fond memory, he thinks that this is all worth it.

He'd do anything for her to stay like that.


	5. Mirror Image, Sakura

**Title:** Mirror image

**Fandom:** Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles

**Theme:** 24. There's a 'me' though, somewhere.

**Character:** Sakura

**Excerpt**: _It is hard to imagine it but there are a hundred of 'Sakura's out there'. One in every world they visit, one in every world they don't, and only the place they come from doesn't have her._

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It is hard to imagine it but there are hundreds of 'Sakura's' out there. One in every world they visit, one in every world they don't, and only the place they came from doesn't have her. Even though she doesn't meet them or see them, she knows they are out there somewhere and that both comforts her and frightens her.

Sometimes, she likes to imagine visiting herself. She would walk to her, introduce herself, and then what? Sakura isn't sure but she thinks it would be fun nevertheless. Would the Sakura in this world be her age or would she be different? Is her hair short too or is it long and silky. Maybe this Sakura has a mother and a father but no brother. Maybe that Sakura has two sisters and likes to swim.

There are thousands of possibilities and she only wishes she could meet them all. Even though they are busy running around most of the time, she still spends a few precious seconds looking around for her reflection.

Then she'd see her friends working so hard to put her back together and she almost wants to cry, _don't try so hard_. _There's another me somewhere here. Maybe she can help._

After all, if they are the same person, maybe they have similar personalities. Maybe Sakura could figure out then how she's supposed to act or what she's supposed to say. Even if she's no longer 'Sakura' that other one is. That other one could teach her and help her shake off the feeling that something isn't right.

It frightens her though because if her friends realized it, maybe they wouldn't want the broken, hard-to-fix Sakura anymore. Maybe they'd realize she isn't worth all the trouble and pain they go through to find her and choose a Sakura that is already perfect and whole.

So when she looks around for her other Sakura and can't find her, she feels both disappointed and relieved at the same time.

She just doesn't know which feeling is stronger.

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	6. Reflections, Sakura

**Title:** Reflections

**Day/Theme:** July 13/The ones that are never said and never explained

**Fandom:** Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles

**Pairing:** Sakura and the original Syaoran

**A/N:** I wrote this, so excited with having an idea, and then, as I was catching up (Chapter 142!), the next chapter I should read had this very idea in it.

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I feel like such a plagiarist even if I'm not.

**Warnings:** Some liberties taken on how much of Syaoran Sakura actually knows.

**Summary:** _It would be so much easier to hate and not care._

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Sometimes, when Sakura watches the Syaoran-who-is-not-Syaoran, she wants to hate (but hate is a strong word and she doesn't want to use it so instead) she dislikes the new Syaoran. Or is it the old one because he is apparently the original?

(Not to her, not her friends. To them he will always be new.)

She wishes he would go away, that she could just ignore him and scare him off. Maybe ditch him in some world and never see him again. It's not in her nature to do that, even though she tries and fails anyways, and it's not his fault.

(Not entirely, at least.)

This Syaoran is different from the other, at some things at least. He isn't as curious about old ruins and past civilizations, instead preferring to stick to the present and the future. He is calmer too, easily accepting things the other would have fought about.

(Sometimes Sakura half-wonders if she doesn't like these differences, because they made it harder to dream.)

The problem is that he has so many similarities. This not-Syaoran with his hair that is just as brown and his limbs that are just as long. He speaks in a voice that is alike and uses words that make her ache with memories. When he grabs her, his hands are also warm and careful, as though she is something precious. Eager eyes, kind expressions, and when he talks to her what she hears echoes her Syaoran.

(And he has a smile just as sad and forlorn; how can two people have that same smile that looks as though they lost something?)

She dislikes (hates and loves) him because she makes her feel her loss even more.

(Sometimes, she wakes up forgets there had been a change.)

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